


The Magical Place

by picturestoproveit



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: ...kind of, Alternate Universe - Afterlife, Alternate Universe - No SHIELD (Marvel), And maybe some mild smut down the road, Bobbi Morse (mentioned) - Freeform, Crack, F/M, In which the audience is me, Lance Hunter (mentioned) - Freeform, Leo Fitz & Skye | Daisy Johnson Friendship, Mistaken Identity, POV Skye | Daisy Johnson, Rating: Light M for language and sexual themes, Skye | Daisy Johnson-centric, The Author Regrets Nothing, This may have been written for an audience of one, depends on how horny I get, fitzdaisy brotp, so much crack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 21:35:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28660317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/picturestoproveit/pseuds/picturestoproveit
Summary: “You, Agent Daisy Johnson, are dead. Your life on Earth has ended, and you are now in the next phase of your existence in the universe.”The Good Place, AoS Style.
Relationships: Jemma Simmons & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Leo Fitz & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons, Phil Coulson & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Skye | Daisy Johnson/Daniel Sousa
Comments: 10
Kudos: 31





	The Magical Place

**Author's Note:**

> If you’ve never seen “The Good Place” before, have no fear – you can still enjoy this crackpot story. That being said, stop what you’re doing and please go watch The Good Place. I promise, you’ll thank me later.

**Welcome to Level Seven!**   
**Everything is fine.**

Daisy blinked at the large, cheerful green lettering on the wall in front of her and reread the message again, trying her best to figure out what “Level Seven” was (it did sound vaguely familiar... wasn’t that the name of the club she got kicked out of last week with Bobbi?), but before she could fall too far down that particular rabbit hole (because really, it was Bobbi’s idea to program the Karaoke machine to play nothing but “Photograph” by Nickleback on a continuous loop, Daisy just merely hacked the software), a door directly to her left swung open, and a pleasant-faced man poked his head into the room.

“Agent Johnson?” he asked warmly, meeting her eyes with an equally warm smile.

Daisy glanced around the room, confused. It looked like a standard, bland waiting room - beige walls, one potted plant, and one sofa ( on which she was sitting). And unless the agent the man was looking for was invisible, she was currently the only occupant of said bland waiting room.

Huh.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be so formal, I’m just a big fan of your work,” the man said with a sheepish grin. Daisy stared at him blankly, curious about what “work” he was purporting to be a fan of. She wasn’t super artistic, but even she had to admit using the high-end metallic spray paint from Home Depot really was a visually stunning way to tag the side of her ex-boyfriend’s Mazda Miata with his social security number.

“Daisy, come on in,” he continued cheerfully, waving her across the threshold. Daisy rose from the sofa warily and followed him into the small office.

Double _huh_.

“Please, have a seat,” he continued genially, gesturing to the leather backed chair that was parked in front of a glass-topped desk. Daisy complied, dropping into the cushioned upholstery as the man circled around to the opposite side of the desk. He unbuttoned his suit jacket and sank into his office chair in one smooth, practiced motion.

“Daisy, my name is Phil Coulson,” he said, offering her another comforting smile. “How are you?”

Daisy raised her eyebrows. “I’m great. Thank you for asking,” she returned politely. “One question though...where am I, who are you, and what’s going on?” The words rushed out before she could stop them. “Okay, technically that was three questions,” she added awkwardly.

“Right,” Coulson replied, folding his hands and resting them on the desk. He looked her square in the eye. “You, Agent Daisy Johnson, are dead,” he stated plainly. “Your life on Earth has ended, and you are now in the next phase of your existence in the universe.”

“Huh,” Daisy mused. “Cool.” She stared at him for a beat. “I have some questions.”

“Thought you might,” Coulson responded with a twinkle in his eye.

“How...did I die? I don’t remember,” Daisy asked pensively. She furrowed her brow. “I feel like that’s something I should remember, right?”

Coulson heaved a sympathetic sigh. “Yes, well, in cases of a traumatic, embarrassing,  
sudden death, we initiate a protocol that allows us to erase the memory of the event, which is often upsetting and can make the transition into the afterlife difficult for the deceased.” He reached the clipboard in front of him and picked it up. “Are you sure you want to hear it?” he asked, his eyes darting down at the paperwork he was holding before meeting her gaze again.

“Well, yeah,” Daisy huffed impatiently. “It’s my death, I think I have the right to know.”

Coulson nodded briskly. “Okay then,” he acquiesced, reaching into his breast pocket for a pair of reading glasses and slipping them up the bridge of his nose. “You were outside Avengers Tower in New York,” he began, his eyes skimming over the words on the page. “You were wearing what you described in your own words as ‘Horny War Machine Cosplay’, when your thigh-high aluminum ‘thruster’ boot got caught in a subway grate and you fell backward against the curb.”

“Ouch,” Daisy winced. “Head trauma, huh?” She touched the back of her head involuntarily. “Well, sounds like it was quick, at least. I have to say, when you said embarrassing, I was expecting much wor-“

“No sorry, there’s more,” Coulson interrupted, holding up a finger. He cleared his throat. “Your polyvinyl ‘sexy Mark 1’ helmet initially protected your skull from the immediate trauma,” he continued, “but the fall inadvertently activated your homemade pressurized ‘assless chaps’, the impact of which launched you into oncoming traffic, where you were subsequently hit by a truck towing a billboard for…” He brought the clipboard closer and squinted a bit, “...’Vaginazole Macro-Dose Yeast Infection Treatment’.” He lowered the clipboard and adjusted his glasses. “Ironically, Steve Rogers was actually the first on scene-“

“Yup, okay, that’s good,” Daisy interrupted, holding up a hand. “Got it. Thank you.”

Coulson smiled. “You’re welcome,” he said sincerely, placing the clipboard back on the desktop. “Is there anything else I can answer for you?”

“So, like, who got it right?” Daisy asked, settling back into the chair and crossing her arms. “I mean, wars were fought for thousands of years over this stuff, so…”

“Oh, you mean the religions?” Coulson asked. “Yeah, you know, they all had the right idea. Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, ecetera - they got the basics down, to an extent. But the closest anyone ever came to really nailing it was a Radio Shack employee and amateur slam poet named Thurston Koenig.”

Daisy raised her eyebrows. “A Radio Shack employee?” she replied incredulously.

Coulson nodded. “Yeah, part-time, too,” he said with a chuckle. “Anyway, one night he was up on stage at this club called The Sandbox and just started this whole stream-of-consciousness rant about ‘the man’ tallying up ‘mindless do-gooder’ points to decide how to sort people in the afterlife. I mean, he even threw in some of the quadratic equations we actually use - honestly, we were _dying_ over it, we couldn’t believe that of all the Koenigs, _Thurston_ was the one who got it right.”

“Koenigs? Plural?”

“Yeah, there’s at least four or five of them, most of them went on to become S.H.I.E.L.D agents, but not good old Thurston.” Coulson pointed to a portrait on the wall. “That’s him right there.”

Daisy regarded the framed picture of a stocky, surly- looking man wearing hornrimmed glasses and a shirt that read “Fork the Police” with mild interest before turning her attention back to Coulson.

“So...did I get sorted into the, um…” Daisy asked nervously, gesturing toward the sky, “or in the, ah…down...place?”

“Well, the concept of heaven and hell isn’t what you'd been taught. There’s no palace in the sky, just as there’s no fire and brimstone below our feet. It’s much more complex than that. But basically, the afterlife is made up of a Magical Place, and a Not-So-Magical Place,” Coulson explained patiently. He paused and then smiled at her warmly. “No worries there, _obviously_. You are in the Magical Place, Agent Johnson.”

Daisy heaved a huge sigh of relief. “All right, now we’re talking,” she said with a grin. She paused. “Oh, um, just one teensy little last question,” she said. Coulson nodded. “Of course, ask me anything,” he replied.

“Why do you keep calling me Agent? Is that, like, what you guys call angels or something?” Daisy asked. “I mean, I guess I can see how we humans might have screwed that one up - _agent_ and _angel_ do sort of sound alike. Did that King James guy mess up on the translation or what?”

Coulson laughed. “That’s a good one,” he said with a wink. “Wordplay is great, I don’t care what they say.” He stood from his desk, rebuttoning his jacket. “Although there are millions of people on Earth that probably do see you more as an angel than an agent.”

That...was a weird thing to say. Daisy felt her stomach flutter, and not in the good, “I just hacked the Pentagon personnel files” kind of way.

“Um...there are?” she asked nervously. She had no idea what he meant by that, but something told her she wasn’t going to like where this conversation was headed.

Coulson nodded. “Well, yeah, I’d say so - saving countless lives time and time again during your tenure with S.H.I.E.L.D.? That qualifies as ‘angel’ status in a lot of peoples’ books,” he replied, positively beaming at her.

Daisy swallowed hard. “Uh, well...right. Of course,” she managed to squeak out, looking up at Coulson. “All those people that I...saved. That’s...that’s really nice of them to, uh, think that about me, but, um…” she trailed off, not knowing how to continue. _An agent of S.H.I.E.L.D_? Daisy knew she was a lot of things, and granted, there _was_ a period in her late teens/early twenties that had been pretty hazy, but she was fairly certain she would remember working as a freaking federal AGENT.

Coulson rounded the desk and leaned down to squeeze her shoulder. “I know, you don’t really like to talk about it,” he said softly. “You were so modest about your heroism on Earth, I should have realized you would still be just as humble once you got here.”

Daisy nodded numbly. “Yeah, you know...I just don’t like to brag,” she said through gritted teeth, digging her nails into her palm and choosing to focus on the pain in her hand rather than the time she managed to get every flatscreen at the Pasadena Circuit City to read DOUG BROCKTON IS A LOSER after she won his laptop from him in an underground poker game back in 2009.

Coulson smiled. “Come on, walk with me,” he said. “Let me show you the neighborhood.” Daisy rose to her feet slowly, and once she was certain her knees weren’t going to give out, proceeded to follow him through the threshold of the office door-

-and into blinding sunlight.

“Arghh!!” Daisy cried, clapping a hand over her eyes in pain.

Next to her, Coulson made a noise of sympathy. “Ooh, sorry, I forgot to warn you. Doors work differently here,” he said apologetically. “My bad.”

“Yup, no, that’s- I was expecting the creepy windowless waiting room, but I really should have seen this coming,” Daisy replied tightly, eyes scrunched shut. “Just give me a second here.”

Her temporary blindness signaled her other senses to kick into high gear. She shivered pleasantly as a soft, warm breeze rustled her hair, and in the distance she could hear what sounded like waves crashing gently on a shore. She slowly opened her eyes, blinking until the spots in her vision eventually abated.

“Whoa,” Daisy exclaimed softly, gazing around at the surrounding landscape. She was standing on the most beautiful beach she had ever laid eyes on. The ocean was almost unnaturally blue, and crystal clear to boot. The white sand beneath her feet was streaked with shades of pink and gold, and the air smelled like one those Bath and Bodyworks candles she used to lift from the New Rochelle Mall, only a thousand times better.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Coulson asked, beaming with pride. “I made it myself.”

“You...made this?” Daisy breathed. She closed her eyes and tilted her face up toward the sun, basking in a type of warmth she had never quite felt before.

“Mmm-hmm,” Coulson hummed. “I’m the architect of this neighborhood. I designed it specifically for people like you.”

Daisy turned and looked at him. “People like me?” she repeated warily. For one beautiful, fleeting moment, she had forgotten that she clearly wasn’t the Daisy Johnson this guy thought she was. All in all, it had been a very peaceful thirty seconds.

Coulson smiled. “Yes. Neighborhood 616 was made for people like you: agents, soldiers, officers, public servants,” he explained. He paused for a beat before turning to face her square-on. He laid his hands on her shoulders and gave them a gentle squeeze. “People who dedicated their lives to an ideal - that they were all part of something bigger,” he continued earnestly, staring into her eyes. “Heroes.”

Daisy smiled tightly, wondering briefly if her membership in a global hacking ring counted as heroic public servitude.

“That’s... very nice of you,” she replied lamely. “I just - um...I’m not sure I really deserve to live in a place like this,” she added with a nervous chuckle, thinking back to the last apartment she lived in before moving into her van. The landlord who evicted her after she passed out with the bathtub running and a rotisserie chicken under the broiler would likely agree with that sentiment.

Coulson beamed. “There it is again, that modesty,” he said proudly. “Agent Johnson, I can’t think of anyone who deserves this home more.” He patted her once more on the shoulder. “Now come on - orientation is about to start.”

Daisy swallowed back the small amount of bile that had crept up her throat and tried her best to return Coulson’s enthusiastic grin. She hoped her expression wasn’t too constipated-looking. After all, legitimate residents of the Magical Place probably didn’t experience gastrointestinal issues.

As she followed Coulson up the beach, she couldn’t help but wonder how she was going to worm her way out of this one. Unless it was possible to hack the afterlife, she was going to have to face the facts. The defense mechanisms and... _questionable_ behaviors that helped her survive as long as she did on Earth were now about to come full circle and bite her in her eternally-damned ass.

She was totally screwed.


End file.
